Work on JJ hospital's super-specialty department to begin in April

JJ Hospital’s ambitious project to build a 16-storey building for a super-speciality department on the hospital campus is set to get a lift. Work on this project will begin in April.

At a cost of Rs600 crore, this will be the first high-rise at the state-run hospital.

Before starting work on the new building, the hospital administration has to first demolish two old buildings. For this purpose, it has floated tenders.

With 16 operation theatres and 38 departments, 2,500 out-patient department patients are attended to daily. The hospital also sees 1,100 admissions and 200 surgeries a day.

Over the past few years, the hospital has been facing an acute shortage of space. To battle this problem, the hospital administration recently asked the government for permission to use an old prisoners’ ward.

JJ plans to shift nine departments into this building, each of which will be dedicated to supra-major treatments like neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, urology and plastic surgery.

“All the new departments will be designed as per doctors’ need.  We asked the departmental heads to express their opinion about this design,” said Dr TP Lahane, dean of the hospital.

He added, “All kind of necessary permission we already got and the actual work of new building will start in April.”

The state has earmarked Rs600 crore for the construction of this 16-storey tower. However, in the first phase, only Rs125 crore will be released.